Monday, October 24

Today people celebrate Diwali, also known as Deepavali, and other variants. Whatever you call it, people know it as the Indian Festival of Lights. We have read that we will find lights and fireworks and jollity of all kinds at the beach. We have never actually found ourselves here at Diwali before and so we have never seen the celebrations. Off we walk, just as darkness sets in.

When we get to Lighthouse Beach we walk up and down feeling more and more puzzled, until we end up at the Crab Club where we ask the waiter where the fireworks have gone.

We learn that all the celebrations happen the evening before: on Diwali Eve as you might say. The bangs last night that I thought amounted to people jumping the gun actually amounted to the festival itself.

So we have still never seen the celebrations, although we have now heard them at a distance. I celebrate our near miss by photographing a relatively new mural on the wall of the Crab Club which, incidentally, does not feature crab on its menu at all.